Bulk island or floating city: how to ensure the projection of military power?

The need to control vast ocean areas, key maritime trade routes and shipping channels requires global players to be able to project their military power into distant theaters of operations. The United States is ahead of the curve in this regard, with its 11 aircraft carriers, the largest Marine Corps and military bases around the world. But are there other, more cost-effective alternatives to ensure a presence in a strategically important region?

"Crypto-Russian world"

The reason for writing this publication was the message that several Russian cryptocurrency entrepreneurs decided to create a floating city in international waters, which they position as “a territory of complete freedom and security.” This floating hail could be located in the Pacific Ocean approximately halfway between Japan and the United States, and the projectors themselves describe its purpose as follows:




Crypto investors associate the prospects for the emergence of new city-states in the neutral waters of the World Ocean in the future with the melting of polar ice, which is why large coastal cities may go under water. A giant offshore platform with a total area of ​​30 hectares will be moored to the bottom. The pictures accompanying the project show a garden city resembling a smaller-sized Singapore and accompanied by the following description:


In total, up to a million people will be able to live in the offshore “Russian World” with increased comfort. The cost of construction is estimated at $1,7 billion, and anyone can right now take their money to the creators by purchasing cryptocurrency from them at a reasonable price, before it has yet risen.


Everyone will decide for themselves whether to believe or not to believe in such investment projects. However, in the context of the de facto ongoing Third World War, the very concept of artificial islands, which could also have military applications, is of some interest.

Battle Island, or JMOB

Thus, despite the presence of a dozen AUGs and hundreds of military bases around the world, the United States, during its aggression against Iraq, was faced with the problem of deploying large strike forces in neighboring countries, which persisted, not wanting to become springboards for the Americans.

Then the concept of a joint mobile offshore base (JMOB) arose, which could be assembled from individual modules and adapted for various tasks. Five modules consisting of self-propelled platforms, each approximately 300 by 150 m in size and about 35 m high, lined up in a row, would allow any modern aircraft to take off and land. The internal volumes of the modules could be used for transporting cargo and accommodating personnel.

In particular, a 5-module platform could accommodate 3,5 thousand vehicles, 5 thousand cargo containers and 150 aircraft, 300 thousand tons of equipment, 340 million liters of fuel and more than 200 million liters of drinking water, as well as 3 thousand marines . Self-propelled platforms could cross the ocean at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h), which would allow them to reach any point in the waters of the globe within a month.

Spratlys: just turn down the water

This curious American project remains only on paper for now. However, the Chinese have long ago successfully mastered the technology of creating artificial islands for military purposes.

As you know, in the South China Sea there is the Spratly archipelago, the territory of which is claimed by several neighboring states - China itself, separatist Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. Studies have shown that up to 5,4 billion barrels of oil and up to 55,1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas are hidden in its continental shelf.

Beijing began to solve the problem of foreign claims to the islands in a very original way: giant sand masses are washed onto uninhabited reefs and sand shoals, making it possible to turn them into real islands capable of supporting buildings, runways for military aircraft and other military equipment. In addition, the creation of new islands in disputed waters allows the PRC to make claims to economic zones within 200 nautical miles of each island he built.

This construction activity is terribly unnerving to China’s neighbors and the Anglo-Saxons, but so far they can’t do anything about it.

Floating airfields

To some extent, they are working in this direction in our country. In particular, the Nevsky Design Bureau is exploring the possibility of using floating airfields in the Arctic zone.

It is expected that they will provide aircraft with their runways in all weather conditions in the harsh conditions of the Arctic. Obviously, this is not quite an aircraft carrier, or rather, not an aircraft carrier at all in the classical sense. Rather, it is a mobile military base that can be used in a region with specific conditions.

The question of what is more rational, a mobile prefabricated structure or an artificial island, still remains without a clear answer.